Balzac's Omelette: A Delicious Tour of French Food and Culture with Honoré de Balzac

The acclaimed biographer offers a fresh, insightful view of Balzac’s life, time, and works through the lens of food.

“Tell me where you eat, what you eat, and at what time you eat, and I will tell you who you are.” This is the motto of Anka Muhlstein’s erudite and witty book about the ways food and the art of the table feature in Honoré de Balzac’s The Human Comedy. Balzac uses them as a connecting thread in his novels, showing how food can evoke character, atmosphere, class, and social cli...